The invention relates to a device for transporting elongate sausages exhibiting a curvature.
As is commonly known, sausages are produced in different calibers and, depending on the kind of sausage, they have either a straight, elongate form or, as in most cases, they are curved, in other words they exhibit a bend. The finished sausages are transported one after the other lying on a conveying device following appropriate treatment where necessary. In this case the sausages are arranged on the conveying device with their longitudinal direction transverse to the conveying direction. They are usually transported to a corresponding grouping device in which corresponding groups of sausages are then created from the individual sausages, after which the individual groups of sausages are gripped via a corresponding handling system and inserted in corresponding packaging.
While the grouping and insertion does not constitute a problem in the case of straight, elongate sausages, as the straight sausages within the group of sausages rest directly against one another and, as a consequence, each group of sausages is always virtually the same size, problems occur in this respect when it comes to curved, in other words bent, sausages. This is because the sausages are conveyed at random along via the conveying device. This means that two transported sausages arranged behind one another may either be identically aligned, in other words they may lie with their curvature uniformly or else identically aligned, or they are differently positioned, in other words either the two curvatures or curvature convexities lie adjacent to one another or the two ends each lie adjacent to one another and the curvatures or convexities face away from one another. If within the grouping device corresponding groups of sausages are formed from these more or less randomly aligned sausages, the length of the group of sausages, viewed in the conveying direction, varies depending on how the individual sausages lie in relation to one another. Ideally, if all curvatures or convexities are identically aligned, the individual sausages will lie as closely as possibly against one another. In the worst case, two adjacent sausages are each spaced as far apart from one another as possible, in other words either the convexities lie against one another or the respective ends, so that consequently a very long batch of groups of sausages results. Automated handling is virtually impracticable in this case.
In order to solve this particular problem, sometimes also at the specific request of the plant operator, it is known in the art for the alignment of the sausages being transported one after the other to be detected by means of a detection device and using a mechanical alignment or adjustment mechanism which has a kind of grab, in order to detect a sausage not aligned in a previously defined direction, to lift and turn it so that in this way all the sausages being transported to the grouping device are identically aligned. Integrating an alignment or adjustment mechanism of this kind is very expensive, however, and the alignment or turning process also takes a substantial amount of time, so that the throughput is not particularly great as a result of a constantly changing number of turning or reversing operations.